§ 1
the week-end visit is a form of entertainment peculiar to great britain. it is a thing that could have been possible only in a land essentially aristocratic and mellow, in which even the observance of the sabbath has become mellow. at every london terminus on a saturday afternoon the outgoing trains have an unusually large proportion of first class carriages, and a peculiar abundance of rich-looking dressing-bags provoke the covetous eye. a discreet activity of valets and maids mingles with the stimulated alertness of the porters. one marks celebrities in gay raiment. there is an indefinable air of distinction upon platform and bookstall. sometimes there are carriages reserved for especially privileged parties. there are greetings.
“and so you are coming too!”
“no, this time it is shonts.”
“the place where they found the rubens. who has it now?” ...
through this cheerfully prosperous throng went the lord chancellor with his high nose, those eyebrows of his which he seemed to be able 23to furl or unfurl at will and his expression of tranquil self-sufficiency. he was going to shonts for his party and not for his pleasure, but there was no reason why that should appear upon his face. he went along preoccupied, pretending to see nobody, leaving to others the disadvantage of the greeting. in his right hand he carried a small important bag of leather. under his left arm he bore a philosophical work by doctor mactaggart, three illustrated papers, the fortnightly review, the day’s times, the hibbert journal, punch and two blue books. his lordship never quite knew the limits set to what he could carry under his arm. his man, candler, followed therefore at a suitable distance with several papers that had already been dropped, alert to retrieve any further losses.
at the large bookstall they passed close by mrs. rampound pilby who, according to her custom, was feigning to be a member of the general public and was asking the clerk about her last book. the lord chancellor saw rampound pilby hovering at hand and deftly failed to catch his eye. he loathed the rampound pilbys. he speculated for a moment what sort of people could possibly stand mrs. pilby’s vast pretensions—even from saturday to monday. one dinner party on her right hand had glutted him for life. he chose a corner seat, took possession of both it and the seat opposite it in order to have somewhere to put his feet, left candler to watch over and pack in his hand luggage and went high up the platform, remaining there with his back to the world—rather 24like a bigger more aquiline napoleon—in order to evade the great novelist.
in this he was completely successful.
he returned however to find candler on the verge of a personal conflict with a very fair young man in grey. he was so fair as to be almost an albino, except that his eyes were quick and brown; he was blushing the brightest pink and speaking very quickly.
“these two places,” said candler, breathless with the badness of his case, “are engaged.”
“oh ve-very well,” said the very fair young man with his eyebrows and moustache looking very pale by contrast, “have it so. but do permit me to occupy the middle seat of the carriage. with a residuary interest in the semi-gentleman’s place.”
“you little know, young man, whom you are calling a semi-gentleman,” said candler, whose speciality was grammar.
“here he is!” said the young gentleman.
“which place will you have, my lord?” asked candler, abandoning his case altogether.
“facing,” said the lord chancellor slowly unfurling the eyebrows and scowling at the young man in grey.
“then i’ll have the other,” said the very fair young man talking very glibly. he spoke with a quick low voice, like one who forces himself to keep going. “you see,” he said, addressing the great jurist with the extreme familiarity of the courageously nervous, “i’ve gone into this sort of thing before. first, mind you, i have a far look for a vacant corner. i’m not the sort to spoil 25sport. but if there isn’t a vacant corner i look for traces of a semi-gentleman. a semi-gentleman is one who has a soft cap and not an umbrella—his friend in the opposite seat has the umbrella—or he has an umbrella and not a soft cap, or a waterproof and not a bag, or a bag and not a waterproof. and a half interest in a rug. that’s what i call a semi-gentleman. you see the idea. sort of divided beggar. nothing in any way offensive.”
“sir,” said the lord chancellor, interrupting in a voice of concentrated passion, “i don’t care a rap what you call a semi-gentleman. will you get out of my way?”
“just as you please,” said the very fair young gentleman, and going a few paces from the carriage door he whistled for the boy with the papers. he was bearing up bravely.
“pink ’un?” said the very fair young gentleman almost breathlessly. “black and white. what’s all these others? athen?um? sporting and dramatic? right o. and—eh! what? do i look the sort that buys a spectator? you don’t know! my dear boy, where’s your savoir faire?”
§ 2
the lord chancellor was a philosopher and not easily perturbed. his severe manner was consciously assumed and never much more than skin-deep. he had already furled his eyebrows and dismissed his vis-a-vis from his mind before the train started. he turned over the hibbert journal, and read in it with a large tolerance.
26dimly on the outskirts of his consciousness the very fair young man hovered, as a trifling annoyance, as something pink and hot rustling a sheet of a discordant shade of pink, as something that got in the way of his legs and whistled softly some trivial cheerful air, just to show how little it cared. presently, very soon, this vague trouble would pass out of his consciousness altogether....
the lord chancellor was no mere amateur of philosophy. his activities in that direction were a part of his public reputation. he lectured on religion and ?sthetics. he was a fluent hegelian. he spent his holidays, it was understood, in the absolute—at any rate in germany. he would sometimes break into philosophy at dinner tables and particularly over the desert and be more luminously incomprehensible while still apparently sober, than almost anyone. an article in the hibbert caught and held his attention. it attempted to define a new and doubtful variety of infinity. you know, of course, that there are many sorts and species of infinity, and that the absolute is just the king among infinities as the lion is king among the beasts....
“i say,” said a voice coming out of the world of relativity and coughing the cough of those who break a silence, “you aren’t going to shonts, are you?”
the lord chancellor returned slowly to earth.
“just seen your label,” said the very fair young man. “you see,—i’m going to shonts.”
the lord chancellor remained outwardly serene. he reflected for a moment. and then he fell into 27that snare which is more fatal to great lawyers and judges perhaps than to any other class of men, the snare of the crushing repartee. one had come into his head now,—a beauty.
“then we shall meet there,” he said in his suavest manner.
“well—rather.”
“it would be a great pity,” said the lord chancellor with an effective blandness, using a kind of wry smile that he employed to make things humorous, “it would be a great pity, don’t you think, to anticipate that pleasure.”
and having smiled the retort well home with his head a little on one side, he resumed with large leisurely movements the reading of his hibbert journal.
“got me there,” said the very fair young man belatedly, looking boiled to a turn, and after a period of restlessness settled down to an impatient perusal of black and white.
“there’s a whole blessed week-end of course,” the young man remarked presently without looking up from his paper and apparently pursuing some obscure meditations....
a vague uneasiness crept into the lord chancellor’s mind as he continued to appear to peruse. out of what train of thought could such a remark arise? his weakness for crushing retort had a little betrayed him....
it was, however, only when he found himself upon the platform of chelsome, which as everyone knows is the station for shonts, and discovered mr. and mrs. rampound pilby upon the platform, 28looking extraordinarily like a national monument and its custodian, that the lord chancellor, began to realize that he was in the grip of fate, and that the service he was doing his party by week-ending with the laxtons was likely to be not simply joyless but disagreeable.
well, anyhow, he had mactaggart, and he could always work in his own room....
§ 3
by the end of dinner the lord chancellor was almost at the end of his large but clumsy endurance; he kept his eyebrows furled only by the most strenuous relaxation of his muscles, and within he was a sea of silent blasphemies. all sorts of little things had accumulated....
he exercised an unusual temperance with the port and old brandy his host pressed upon him, feeling that he dared not relax lest his rage had its way with him. the cigars were quite intelligent at any rate, and he smoked and listened with a faintly perceptible disdain to the conversation of the other men. at any rate mrs. rampound pilby was out of the room. the talk had arisen out of a duologue that had preceded the departure of the ladies, a duologue of timbre’s, about apparitions and the reality of the future life. sir peter laxton, released from the eyes of his wife, was at liberty to say he did not believe in all this stuff; it was just thought transference and fancy and all that sort of thing. his declaration did not arrest the flow of feeble instances and experiences 29into which such talk invariably degenerates. his lordship remained carelessly attentive, his eyebrows unfurled but drooping, his cigar upward at an acute angle; he contributed no anecdotes, content now and then to express himself compactly by some brief sentence of pure hegelian—much as a mahometan might spit.
“why! come to that, they say shonts is haunted,” said sir peter. “i suppose we could have a ghost here in no time if i chose to take it on. rare place for a ghost, too.”
the very fair young man of the train had got a name now and was captain douglas. when he was not blushing too brightly he was rather good looking. he was a distant cousin of lady laxton’s. he impressed the lord chancellor as unabashed. he engaged people in conversation with a cheerful familiarity that excluded only the lord chancellor, and even at the lord chancellor he looked ever and again. he pricked up his ears at the mention of ghosts, and afterwards when the lord chancellor came to think things over, it seemed to him that he had caught a curious glance of the captain’s bright little brown eye.
“what sort of ghost, sir peter? chains? eh? no?”
“nothing of that sort, it seems. i don’t know much about it, i wasn’t sufficiently interested. no, sort of spook that bangs about and does you a mischief. what’s its name? plundergeist?”
“poltergeist,” the lord chancellor supplied carelessly in the pause.
30“runs its hand over your hair in the dark. taps your shoulder. all nonsense. but we don’t tell the servants. sort of thing i don’t believe in. easily explained,—what with panelling and secret passages and priests’ holes and all that.”
“priests’ holes!” douglas was excited.
“where they hid. perfect rabbit warren. there’s one going out from the drawing-room alcove. quite a good room in its way. but you know,”—a note of wrath crept into sir peter’s voice,—“they didn’t treat me fairly about these priests’ holes. i ought to have had a sketch and a plan of these priests’ holes. when a chap is given possession of a place, he ought to be given possession. well! i don’t know where half of them are myself. that’s not possession. else we might refurnish them and do them up a bit. i guess they’re pretty musty.”
captain douglas spoke with his eye on the lord chancellor. “sure there isn’t a murdered priest in the place, sir peter?” he asked.
“nothing of the sort,” said sir peter. “i don’t believe in these priests’ holes. half of ’em never had priests in ’em. it’s all pretty tidy rot i expect—come to the bottom of it....”
the conversation did not get away from ghosts and secret passages until the men went to the drawing-room. if it seemed likely to do so captain douglas pulled it back. he seemed to delight in these silly particulars; the sillier they were the more he was delighted.
the lord chancellor was a little preoccupied by one of those irrational suspicions that will 31sometimes afflict the most intelligent of men. why did douglas want to know all the particulars about the shonts ghosts? why every now and then did he glance with that odd expression at one’s face,—a glance half appealing and half amused. amused! it was a strange fancy, but the lord chancellor could almost have sworn that the young man was laughing at him. at dinner he had had that feeling one has at times of being talked about; he had glanced along the table to discover the captain and a rather plain woman, that idiot timbre’s wife she probably was, with their heads together looking up at him quite definitely and both manifestly pleased by something douglas was telling her....
what was it douglas had said in the train? something like a threat. but the exact words had slipped the lord chancellor’s memory....
the lord chancellor’s preoccupation was just sufficient to make him a little unwary. he drifted into grappling distance of mrs. rampound pilby. her voice caught him like a lasso and drew him in.
“well, and how is lord moggeridge now?” she asked.
what on earth is one to say to such an impertinence?
she was always like that. she spoke to a man of the calibre of lord bacon as though she was speaking to a schoolboy home for the holidays. she had an invincible air of knowing all through everybody. it gave rather confidence to her work than charm to her manner.
32“do you still go on with your philosophy?” she said.
“no,” shouted the lord chancellor, losing all self-control for the moment and waving his eyebrows about madly, “no, i go off with it.”
“for your vacations? ah, lord moggeridge, how i envy you great lawyers your long vacations. i—never get a vacation. always we poor authors are pursued by our creations, sometimes it’s typescript, sometimes it’s proofs. not that i really complain of proofs. i confess to a weakness for proofs. sometimes, alas! it’s criticism. such undiscerning criticism!...”
the lord chancellor began to think very swiftly of some tremendous lie that would enable him to escape at once without incivility from lady laxton’s drawing-room. then he perceived that mrs. rampound pilby was asking him; “is that the captain douglas, or his brother, who’s in love with the actress woman?”
the lord chancellor made no answer. what he thought was “great silly idiot! how should i know?”
“i think it must be the one,—the one who had to leave portsmouth in disgrace because of the ragging scandal. he did nothing there, they say, but organize practical jokes. some of them were quite subtle practical jokes. he’s a cousin of our hostess; that perhaps accounts for his presence....”
the lord chancellor’s comment betrayed the drift of his thoughts. “he’d better not try that sort of thing on here,” he said. “i abominate—clowning.”
33drawing-room did not last very long. even lady laxton could not miss the manifest gloom of her principal guest, and after the good-nights and barley water and lemonade on the great landing sir peter led lord moggeridge by the arm—he hated being led by the arm—into the small but still spacious apartment that was called the study. the lord chancellor was now very thirsty; he was not used to abstinence of any sort; but sir peter’s way of suggesting a drink roused such a fury of resentment in him that he refused tersely and conclusively. there was nobody else in the study but captain douglas, who seemed to hesitate upon the verge of some familiar address, and lord woodenhouse, who was thirsty, too, and held a vast tumbler of whisky and soda, with a tinkle of ice in it, on his knee in a way annoying to a parched man. the lord chancellor helped himself to a cigar and assumed the middle of the fireplace with an air of contentment, but he could feel the self-control running out of the heels of his boots.
sir peter, after a quite unsuccessful invasion of his own hearthrug—the lord chancellor stood like a rock—secured the big arm-chair, stuck his feet out towards his distinguished guest and resumed a talk that he had been holding with lord woodenhouse about firearms. mergleson had as usual been too attentive to his master’s glass, and the fine edge was off sir peter’s deference. “i always have carried firearms,” he said, “and i always shall. used properly they are a great protection. even in the country how are 34you to know who you’re going to run up against—anywhen?”
“but you might shoot and hit something,” said douglas.
“properly used, i said—properly used. whipping out a revolver and shooting at a man, that’s not properly used. almost as bad as pointing it at him—which is pretty certain to make him fly straight at you. if he’s got an ounce of pluck. but i said properly used and i mean properly used.”
the lord chancellor tried to think about that article on infinities, while appearing to listen to this fool’s talk. he despised revolvers. armed with such eyebrows as his it was natural for him to despise revolvers.
“now, i’ve got some nice little barkers upstairs,” said sir peter. “i’d almost welcome a burglar, just to try them.”
“if you shoot a burglar,” said lord woodenhouse abruptly, with a gust of that ill-temper that was frequent at shonts towards bedtime, “when he’s not attacking you, it’s murder.”
sir peter held up an offensively pacifying hand. “i know that,” he said; “you needn’t tell me that.”
he raised his voice a little to increase his already excessive accentuations. “i said properly used.”
a yawn took the lord chancellor unawares and he caught it dexterously with his hand. then he saw douglas hastily pull at his little blond moustache to conceal a smile,—grinning 35ape! what was there to smile at? the man had been smiling all the evening.
up to something?
“now let me tell you,” said sir peter, “let me tell you the proper way to use a revolver. you whip it out and instantly let fly at the ground. you should never let anyone see a revolver ever before they hear it—see? you let fly at the ground first off, and the concussion stuns them. it doesn’t stun you. you expect it, they don’t. see? there you are—five shots left, master of the situation.”
“i think, sir peter, i’ll bid you good-night,” said the lord chancellor, allowing his eye to rest for one covetous moment on the decanter, and struggling with the devil of pride.
sir peter made a gesture of extreme friendliness from his chair, expressive of the lord chancellor’s freedom to do whatever he pleased at shonts. “i may perhaps tell you a little story that happened once in morocco.”
“my eyes won’t keep open any longer,” said captain douglas suddenly, with a whirl of his knuckles into his sockets, and stood up.
lord woodenhouse stood up too.
“you see,” said sir peter, standing also but sticking to his subject and his hearer. “this was when i was younger than i am now, you must understand, and i wasn’t married. just mooching about a bit, between business and pleasure. under such circumstances one goes into parts of a foreign town where one wouldn’t go if one was older and wiser....”
36captain douglas left sir peter and woodenhouse to it.
he emerged on the landing and selected one of the lighted candlesticks upon the table. “lord!” he whispered. he grimaced in soliloquy and then perceived the lord chancellor regarding him with suspicion and disfavour from the ascending staircase. he attempted ease. for the first time since the train incident he addressed lord moggeridge.
“i gather, my lord,—don’t believe in ghosts?” he said.
“no, sir,” said the lord chancellor, “i don’t.”
“they won’t trouble me to-night.”
“they won’t trouble any of us.”
“fine old house anyhow,” said captain douglas.
the lord chancellor disdained to reply. he went on his way upstairs.
§ 4
when the lord chancellor sat down before the thoughtful fire in the fine old panelled room assigned to him he perceived that he was too disturbed to sleep. this was going to be an infernal week-end. the worst week-end he had ever had. mrs. rampound pilby maddened him; timbre, who was a pragmatist—which stands in the same relation to a hegelian that a small dog does to a large cat—exasperated him; he loathed laxton, detested rampound pilby and feared—as far as he was capable of fearing anything—captain 37douglas. there was no refuge, no soul in the house to whom he could turn for consolation and protection from these others. slinker bond could talk only of the affairs of the party, and the lord chancellor, being lord chancellor, had long since lost any interest in the affairs of the party; woodenhouse could talk of nothing. the women were astonishingly negligible. there were practically no pretty women. there ought always to be pretty young women for a lord chancellor, pretty young women who can at least seem to listen....
and he was atrociously thirsty.
his room was supplied only with water,—stuff you use to clean your teeth—and nothing else....
no good thinking about it....
he decided that the best thing he could do to compose himself before turning in would be to sit down at the writing-table and write a few sheets of hegelian—about that infinity article in the hibbert. there is indeed no better consolation for a troubled mind than the hegelian exercises; they lift it above—everything. he took off his coat and sat down to this beautiful amusement, but he had scarcely written a page before his thirst became a torment. he kept thinking of that great tumbler woodenhouse had held,—sparkling, golden, cool—and stimulating.
what he wanted was a good stiff whisky and a cigar, one of laxton’s cigars, the only good thing in his entertainment so far.
and then philosophy.
38even as a student he had been a worker of the teutonic type,—never abstemious.
he thought of ringing and demanding these comforts, and then it occurred to him that it was a little late to ring for things. why not fetch them from the study himself?...
he opened his door and looked out upon the great staircase. it was a fine piece of work, that staircase. low, broad, dignified....
there seemed to be nobody about. the lights were still on. he listened for a little while, and then put on his coat and went with a soft swiftness that was still quite dignified downstairs to the study, the study redolent of sir peter.
he made his modest collection.
lord moggeridge came nearer to satisfaction as he emerged from the study that night at shonts than at any other moment during this ill-advised week-end. in his pocket were four thoroughly good cigars. in one hand he held a cut glass decanter of whisky. in the other a capacious tumbler. under his arm, with that confidence in the unlimited portative power of his arm that nothing could shake, he had tucked the syphon. his soul rested upon the edge of tranquillity like a bird that has escaped the fowler. he was already composing his next sentence about that new variety of infinity....
then something struck him from behind and impelled him forward a couple of paces. it was something hairy, something in the nature, he thought afterwards, of a worn broom. and also 39there were two other things softer and a little higher on each side....
then it was he made that noise like the young of some large animal.
he dropped the glass in a hasty attempt to save the syphon....
“what in the name of heaven—?” he cried, and found himself alone.
“captain douglas!”
the thought leapt to his mind.
but indeed, it was not captain douglas. it was bealby. bealby in panic flight from thomas. and how was bealby to know that this large, richly laden man was the lord chancellor of england? never before had bealby seen anyone in evening dress except a butler, and so he supposed this was just some larger, finer kind of butler that they kept upstairs. some larger, finer kind of butler blocking the path of escape. bealby had taken in the situation with the rapidity of a hunted animal. the massive form blocked the door to the left....
in the playground of the village school bealby had been pre?minent for his dodging; he moved as quickly as a lizard. his little hands, his head, poised with the skill of a practised butter, came against that mighty back, and then bealby had dodged into the study....
but it seemed to lord moggeridge, staggering over his broken glass and circling about defensively, that this fearful indignity could come only from captain douglas. foolery.... blup, blup.... sham poltergeist. imbeciles....
40he said as much, believing that this young man and possibly confederates were within hearing; he said as much—hotly. he went on to remark of an unphilosophical tendency about captain douglas generally, and about army officers, practical joking, laxton’s hospitalities, shonts.... thomas, you will remember, heard him....
nothing came of it. no answer, not a word of apology.
at last in a great dudgeon and with a kind of wariness about his back, the lord chancellor, with things more spoilt for him than ever, went on his way upstairs.
when the green baize door opened behind him, he turned like a shot, and a large foolish-faced butler appeared. lord moggeridge, with a sceptre-like motion of the decanter, very quietly and firmly asked him a simple question and then, then the lunatic must needs leap up three stairs and dive suddenly and upsettingly at his legs.
lord moggeridge was paralyzed with amazement. his legs were struck from under him. he uttered one brief topographical cry.
(to sir peter unfortunately it sounded like “help!”)
for a few seconds the impressions that rushed upon lord moggeridge were too rapid for adequate examination. he had a compelling fancy to kill butlers. things culminated in a pistol shot. and then he found himself sitting on the landing beside a disgracefully dishevelled manservant, and his host was running downstairs to them with a revolver in his hand.
41on occasion lord moggeridge could produce a tremendous voice. he did so now. for a moment he stared panting at sir peter, and then emphasized by a pointing finger came the voice. never had it been so charged with emotion.
“what does this mean, you, sir?” he shouted. “what does this mean?”
it was exactly what sir peter had intended to say.
§ 5
explanations are detestable things.
and anyhow it isn’t right to address your host as “you, sir.”
§ 6
throughout the evening the persuasion had grown in lady laxton’s mind that all was not going well with the lord chancellor. it was impossible to believe he was enjoying himself. but she did not know how to give things a turn for the better. clever women would have known, but she was so convinced she was not clever that she did not even try.
thing after thing had gone wrong.
how was she to know that there were two sorts of philosophy,—quite different? she had thought philosophy was philosophy. but it seemed that there were these two sorts, if not more; a round large sort that talked about the absolute and was scornfully superior and rather irascible, and a jabby-pointed sort that called people “tender” or “tough,” and was generally 42much too familiar. to bring them together was just mixing trouble. there ought to be little books for hostesses explaining these things....
then it was extraordinary that the lord chancellor, who was so tremendously large and clever, wouldn’t go and talk to mrs. rampound pilby, who was also so tremendously large and clever. repeatedly lady laxton had tried to get them into touch with one another. until at last the lord chancellor had said distinctly and deliberately, when she had suggested his going across to the eminent writer, “god forbid!” her dream of a large clever duologue that she could afterwards recall with pleasure was altogether shattered. she thought the lord chancellor uncommonly hard to please. these weren’t the only people for him. why couldn’t he chat party secrets with slinker bond or say things to lord woodenhouse? you could say anything you liked to lord woodenhouse. or talk with mr. timbre. mrs. timbre had given him an excellent opening; she had asked, “wasn’t it a dreadful anxiety always to have the great seal to mind?” he had simply grunted.... and then why did he keep on looking so dangerously at captain douglas?...
perhaps to-morrow things would take a turn for the better....
one can at least be hopeful. even if one is not clever one can be that....
from such thoughts as these it was that this unhappy hostess was roused by a sound of smashing glass, a rumpus, and a pistol shot.
43she stood up, she laid her hand on her heart, she said “oh!” and gripped her dressing-table for support....
after a long time and when it seemed that it was now nothing more than a hubbub of voices, in which her husband’s could be distinguished clearly, she crept out very softly upon the upper landing.
she perceived her cousin, captain douglas, looking extremely fair and frail and untrustworthy in a much too gorgeous kimono dressing-gown of embroidered japanese silk. “i can assure you, my lord,” he was saying in a strange high-pitched deliberate voice, “on—my—word—of—honour—as—a—soldier, that i know absolutely nothing about it.”
“sure it wasn’t all imagination, my lord?” sir peter asked with his inevitable infelicity....
she decided to lean over the balustrading and ask very quietly and clearly:
“lord moggeridge, please! is anything the matter?”
§ 6
all human beings are egotists, but there is no egotism to compare with the egotism of the very young.
bealby was so much the centre of his world that he was incapable of any interpretation of this shouting and uproar, this smashing of decanters and firing of pistol shots, except in reference to himself. he supposed it to be a hue and cry. he supposed that he was being hunted—hunted 44by a pack of great butlers hounded on by the irreparably injured thomas. the thought of upstairs gentlefolks passed quite out of his mind. he snatched up a faked syrian dagger that lay, in the capacity of a paper knife, on the study table, concealed himself under the chintz valance of a sofa, adjusted its rumpled skirts neatly, and awaited the issue of events.
for a time events did not issue. they remained talking noisily upon the great staircase. bealby could not hear what was said, but most of what was said appeared to be flat contradiction.
“perchance,” whispered bealby to himself, gathering courage, “perchance we have eluded them.... a breathing space....”
at last a woman’s voice mingled with the others and seemed a little to assuage them....
then it seemed to bealby that they were dispersing to beat the house for him. “good-night again then,” said someone.
that puzzled him, but he decided it was a “blind.” he remained very, very still.
he heard a clicking in the apartment—the blue parlour it was called—between the study and the dining-room. electric light?
then some one came into the study. bealby’s eye was as close to the ground as he could get it. he was breathless, he moved his head with an immense circumspection. the valance was translucent but not transparent, below it there was a crack of vision, a strip of carpet, the castors of chairs. among these things he perceived feet—not ankles, it did not go up to that, but just feet. 45large flattish feet. a pair. they stood still, and bealby’s hand lighted on the hilt of his dagger.
the person above the feet seemed to be surveying the room or reflecting.
“drunk!... old fool’s either drunk or mad! that’s about the truth of it,” said a voice.
mergleson! angry, but parroty and unmistakable.
the feet went across to the table and there were faint sounds of refreshment, discreetly administered. then a moment of profound stillness....
“ah!” said the voice at last, a voice renewed.
then the feet went to the passage door, halted in the doorway. there was a double click. the lights went out. bealby was in absolute darkness.
then a distant door closed and silence followed upon the dark....
mr. mergleson descended to a pantry ablaze with curiosity.
“the lord chancellor’s going dotty,” said mr. mergleson, replying to the inevitable question. “that’s what’s up.” ...
“i tried to save the blessed syphon,” said mr. mergleson, pursuing his narrative, “and ’e sprang on me like a leppard. i suppose ’e thought i wanted to take it away from ’im. ’e’d broke a glass already. ’ow,—i don’t know. there it was, lying on the landing....”
“’ere’s where ’e bit my ’and,” said mr. mergleson....
46a curious little side-issue occurred to thomas. “where’s young kicker all this time?” he asked.
“lord!” said mr. mergleson, “all them other things; they clean drove ’im out of my ’ed. i suppose ’e’s up there, hiding somewhere....”
he paused. his eye consulted the eye of thomas.
“’e’s got behind a curtain or something,” said mr. mergleson....
“queer where ’e can ’ave got to,” said mr. mergleson....
“can’t be bothered about ’im,” said mr. mergleson.
“i expect he’ll sneak down to ’is room when things are quiet,” said thomas, after reflection.
“no good going and looking for ’im now,” said mr. mergleson. “things upstairs,—they got to settle down....”
but in the small hours mr. mergleson awakened and thought of bealby and wondered whether he was in bed. this became so great an uneasiness that about the hour of dawn he got up and went along the passage to bealby’s compartment. bealby was not there and his bed had not been slept in.
that sinister sense of gathering misfortunes which comes to all of us at times in the small hours, was so strong in the mind of mr. mergleson that he went on and told thomas of this disconcerting fact. thomas woke with difficulty and rather crossly, but sat up at last, alive to the gravity of mr. mergleson’s mood.
47“if ’e’s found hiding about upstairs after all this upset,” said mr. mergleson, and left the rest of the sentence to a sympathetic imagination.
“now it’s light,” said mr. mergleson after a slight pause, “i think we better just go round and ’ave a look for ’im. both of us.”
so thomas clad himself provisionally, and the two man-servants went upstairs very softly and began a series of furtive sweeping movements—very much in the spirit of lord kitchener’s historical sweeping movements in the transvaal—through the stately old rooms in which bealby must be lurking....
§ 8
man is the most restless of animals. there is an incessant urgency in his nature. he never knows when he is well off. and so it was that bealby’s comparative security under the sofa became presently too irksome to be endured. he seemed to himself to stay there for ages, but as a matter of fact, he stayed there only twenty minutes. then with eyes tempered to the darkness he first struck out an alert attentive head, then crept out and remained for the space of half a minute on all fours surveying the indistinct blacknesses about him.
then he knelt up. then he stood up. then with arms extended and cautious steps he began an exploration of the apartment.
the passion for exploration grows with what 48it feeds upon. presently bealby was feeling his way into the blue parlour and then round by its shuttered and curtained windows to the dining-room. his head was now full of the idea of some shelter, more permanent, less pervious to housemaids, than that sofa. he knew enough now of domestic routines to know that upstairs in the early morning was much routed by housemaids. he found many perplexing turns and corners, and finally got into the dining-room fireplace where it was very dark and kicked against some fire-irons. that made his heart beat fast for a time. then groping on past it, he found in the darkness what few people could have found in the day, the stud that released the panel that hid the opening of the way that led to the priest hole. he felt the thing open, and halted perplexed. in that corner there wasn’t a ray of light. for a long time he was trying to think what this opening could be, and then he concluded it was some sort of back way from downstairs.... well, anyhow it was all exploring. with an extreme gingerliness he got himself through the panel. he closed it almost completely behind him.
careful investigation brought him to the view that he was in a narrow passage of brick or stone that came in a score of paces to a spiral staircase going both up and down. up this he went, and presently breathed cool night air and had a glimpse of stars through a narrow slit-like window almost blocked by ivy. then—what was very disagreeable—something scampered.
49when bealby’s heart recovered he went on up again.
he came to the priest hole, a capacious cell six feet square with a bench bed and a little table and chair. it had a small door upon the stairs that was open and a niche cupboard. here he remained for a time. then restlessness made him explore a cramped passage, he had to crawl along it for some yards, that came presently into a curious space with wood on one side and stone on the other. then ahead, most blessed thing! he saw light.
he went blundering toward it and then stopped appalled. from the other side of this wooden wall to the right of him had come a voice.
“come in!” said the voice. a rich masculine voice that seemed scarcely two yards away.
bealby became rigid. then after a long interval he moved—as softly as he could.
the voice soliloquized.
bealby listened intently, and then when all was still again crept forward two paces more towards the gleam. it was a peephole.
the unseen speaker was walking about. bealby listened, and the sound of his beating heart mingled with the pad, pad, of slippered footsteps. then with a brilliant effort his eye was at the chink. all was still again. for a time he was perplexed by what he saw, a large pink shining dome, against a deep greenish grey background. at the base of the dome was a kind of interrupted hedge, brown and leafless....
then he realized that he was looking at the 50top of a head and two enormous eyebrows. the rest was hidden....
nature surprised bealby into a penetrating sniff.
“now,” said the occupant of the room, and suddenly he was standing up—bealby saw a long hairy neck sticking out of a dressing-gown—and walking to the side of the room. “i won’t stand it,” said the great voice, “i won’t stand it. ape’s foolery!”
then the lord chancellor began rapping at the panelling about his apartment.
“hollow! it all sounds hollow.”
only after a long interval did he resume his writing....
all night long that rat behind the wainscot troubled the lord chancellor. whenever he spoke, whenever he moved about, it was still; whenever he composed himself to write it began to rustle and blunder. again and again it sniffed,—an annoying kind of sniff. at last the lord chancellor gave up his philosophical relaxation and went to bed, turned out the lights and attempted sleep, but this only intensified his sense of an uneasy, sniffing presence close to him. when the light was out it seemed to him that this thing, whatever it was, instantly came into the room and set the floor creaking and snapping. a thing perpetually attempting something and perpetually thwarted....
the lord chancellor did not sleep a wink. the first feeble infiltration of day found him sitting up in bed, wearily wrathful.... and now 51surely someone was going along the passage outside!
a great desire to hurt somebody very much seized upon the lord chancellor. perhaps he might hurt that dismal farceur upon the landing! no doubt it was douglas sneaking back to his own room after the night’s efforts.
the lord chancellor slipped on his dressing-gown of purple silk. very softly indeed did he open his bedroom door and very warily peep out. he heard the soft pad of feet upon the staircase.
he crept across the broad passage to the beautiful old balustrading. down below he saw mergleson—mergleson again!—in a shameful deshabille—going like a snake, like a slinking cat, like an assassin, into the door of the study. rage filled the great man’s soul. gathering up the skirts of his dressing-gown he started in a swift yet noiseless pursuit.
he followed mergleson through the little parlour and into the dining-room, and then he saw it all! there was a panel open, and mergleson very cautiously going in. of course! they had got at him through the priest hole. they had been playing on his nerves. all night they had been doing it—no doubt in relays. the whole house was in this conspiracy.
with his eyebrows spread like the wings of a fighting cock the lord chancellor in five vast noiseless strides had crossed the intervening space and gripped the butler by his collarless shirt as he was disappearing. it was like a hawk striking a sparrow. mergleson felt himself 52clutched, glanced over his shoulder and, seeing that fierce familiar face again close to his own, pitiless, vindictive, lost all sense of human dignity and yelled like a lost soul....
§ 9
sir peter laxton was awakened from an uneasy sleep by the opening of the dressing-room door that connected his room with his wife’s.
he sat up astonished and stared at her white face, its pallor exaggerated by the cold light of dawn.
“peter,” she said, “i’m sure there’s something more going on.”
“something more going on?”
“something—shouting and swearing.”
“you don’t mean—?”
she nodded. “the lord chancellor,” she said, in an awe-stricken whisper. “he’s at it again. downstairs in the dining-room.”
sir peter seemed disposed at first to receive this quite passively. then he flashed into extravagant wrath. “i’m damned,” he cried, jumping violently out of bed, “if i’m going to stand this! not if he was a hundred lord chancellors! he’s turning the place into a bally lunatic asylum. once—one might excuse. but to start in again.... what’s that?”
they both stood still listening. faintly yet quite distinctly came the agonized cry of some imperfectly educated person,—“’elp!”
“here! where’s my trousers?” cried sir 53peter. “he’s murdering mergleson. there isn’t a moment to lose.”
§ 10
until sir peter returned lady laxton sat quite still just as he had left her on his bed, aghast.
she could not even pray.
the sun had still to rise; the room was full of that cold weak inky light, light without warmth, knowledge without faith, existence without courage, that creeps in before the day. she waited.... in such a mood women have waited for massacre....
downstairs a raucous shouting....
she thought of her happy childhood upon the yorkshire wolds, before the idea of week-end parties had entered her mind. the heather. the little birds. kind things. a tear ran down her cheek....
§ 11
then sir peter stood before her again, alive still, but breathless and greatly ruffled.
she put her hands to her heart. she would be brave.
“yes,” she said. “tell me.”
“he’s as mad as a hatter,” said sir peter.
she nodded for more. she knew that.
“has he—killed anyone?” she whispered.
“he looked uncommonly like trying,” said sir peter.
she nodded, her lips tightly compressed.
54“says douglas will either have to leave the house or he does.”
“but—douglas!”
“i know, but he won’t hear a word.”
“but why douglas?”
“i tell you he’s as mad as a hatter. got persecution mania. people tapping and bells ringing under his pillow all night—that sort of idea.... and furious. i tell you,—he frightened me. he was awful. he’s given mergleson a black eye. hit him, you know. with his fist. caught him in the passage to the priest hole—how they got there i don’t know—and went for him like a madman.”
“but what has douglas done?”
“i know. i asked him, but he won’t listen. he’s just off his head.... says douglas has got the whole household trying to work a ghost on him. i tell you—he’s off his nut.”
husband and wife looked at each other....
“of course if douglas didn’t mind just going off to oblige me,” said sir peter at last....
“it might calm him,” he explained.... “you see, it’s all so infernally awkward....”
“is he back in his room?”
“yes. waiting for me to decide about douglas. walking up and down.”
for a little while their minds remained prostrate and inactive.
“i’d been so looking forward to the lunch,” she said with a joyless smile. “the county—”
she could not go on.
“you know,” said sir peter, “one thing,—i’ll 55see to it myself. i won’t have him have a single drop of liquor more. if we have to search his room.”
“what i shall say to him at breakfast,” she said, “i don’t know.”
sir peter reflected. “there’s no earthly reason why you should be brought into it at all. your line is to know nothing about it. show him you know nothing about it. ask him—ask him if he’s had a good night....”
